


a act of mercy

by madameandromeda



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Homicidal Attempt, Mentions of Mental Illness and Trauma, One-Sided Attraction, Slightly Dark!Abigail, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2015-10-02
Packaged: 2018-04-24 09:52:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4914946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madameandromeda/pseuds/madameandromeda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inside the moment where Abigail reflects about her doubts and anxieties while she was being forced to push Alana out of the window. Only with a different conclusion.</p><p>[ mer·cy  (mûr′sē)</p><p>1. Compassionate treatment, especially of those under one's power; clemency.<br/>2. A disposition to be kind and forgiving: a heart full of mercy.<br/>3. Something for which to be thankful; a blessing: It was a mercy that no one was hurt.<br/>4. Alleviation of distress; relief: Taking in the refugees was an act of mercy. ]</p>
            </blockquote>





	a act of mercy

**Author's Note:**

> I was planning on writing a sequel for this fanfic. But something made me retaliate, the inspiration stopped coming to me, so I decided to just make this small draft because this scene was stuck in my mind for a very long time.

A lot of things could describe an act of mercy; a truthful one.

My trembling hands demonstrated my vulnerability, because to find her there transfixed like a light in front of me sent shivers down my spine. She was also overlapped with an expression of surprise, combined with a small shape of hope, and I would give all that remains of my essence to feel what she did when she saw me.

I couldn't help but admire her.

Right between the limited space of time we had at our encounter, desperation sharp and clear in her nebulous blue eyes, matched so well with her expression at that moment.

I couldn't help, but think  _"how I wish that you had took better care of me, Dr. Bloom, and of yourself as well."_

She was always like a mother figure to me, a friendly essence that distinguished from the horror that contained my life. But she had always been so overwhelming, opaque and blind as well.

From the depths of my heart, I wanted to be like her and, at the same time, I wanted her to be like me.

I wished bitterly that she and I were in synchronization as Hannibal, Will and I appeared to be, somehow.

However, my deepest desires mattered little at that point. I was indoctrinated to think that what I wanted was what  _he_  wanted. I just didn't expect it would be so difficult to just kill her, as he had ordered.

The prolonged thought remained unchanged.

_"I don't want to kill her. Not her. I could kill anybody else, but not her."_

It's ridiculous in the most disastrous way possible, almost pathetic. Vivid memories of the first person my biological father ordered me to kill had come to haunt me again. A girl like me, a girl I loved so deeply, a friend who soon came to be a girlfriend was dead because of me, but honored for a morbid cause; dead, but alive and fixed in my memories, just like the others were.

_"It has to be her, Abigail. You can't escape from this."_

Alana is a girl who looked like me; those deep celeste eyes and ebony hair, only she was older and incredibly more pure, also blind and idealistic. I began to recognize the disrespect that I was making in comparing a pure person like Alana with a monster like myself. Still, again, I couldn’t help it. She was everything I hoped to be, she was another alternative of how I could have turned out to be, she was an alluring form of reality, even though covered with a blindness that I longed to live with.

The inferiority complex shocked me and destroyed me little by little.

Hannibal made a good use of my broken pieces, they fell in order to assemble the monster he desire to shape taking into consideration his fantasies. He used the shell made of skin that I turned to be. He did the same with Will as well.

Will and I were just toys that he was very fond of. Objects that could create the fantasy that he would like to live in at that moment, but I didn’t really care. I spent too much time being shaped and molded for the expectations of everybody else that I encountered in my life. The vision other people had of me influenced directly in my behavior.

Idealized object, killer, victim, survivor, traumatized, cannibal, _daughter_ \- and yet I'm disposable and replaceable compared to Will. While Will intrigued him enough to be almost his equal, I’m just an easy inviting way to lead Will to Hannibal. Even if they could put themselves in a position to take care of me according to their theater of horrors, I would never feel entirely like a part of the connection they exclusively shared with each other.

_I will never be Mischa._

I came to the ultimate conclusion while my eyes were hypnotized from watching Alana as I explored this new vision of my consciousness. After being led to manipulation for so long, I didn't want a family anymore.

I just wanted a friend.

_"Your desires **don't** matter, Abigail. I know what's good for you. You have to focus on the cause. Believe me, that's what you really need."_

I still wanted to kill. I still wanted to balance the weight of my life with somebody, but, as long as I was living, I would be forever seeking for a deeper connection between blood and injured skins, just as my father and Hannibal taught me to. I would be always aching for the thrill I found in killing another human being, it was toxic, ugly and dirty but it was all I knew for so long and I couldn't know how to stop it by then.

I simply didn't wish to be ordered to kill someone I deeply cared about. And especially, I  ** _didn’t_** want to kill Alana Bloom.

I just wanted her to be my friend. As she always was willing to be.

I felt like screaming those words out loud, but still I contained myself, reaching her in slow steps.

"A-Abigail...", she revealed her shaking voice in a tremble whisper as she put down her gun and took a half step towards me, her eyes vibrating while watching me unceasingly, almost looking at me like I was a mirage.

The way she lowered her guard before my presence was like Hannibal told me. Her altruistic emotions were in the way of her better judgement about people, her kindness made her blind to other people's perversity. She shaped me as an innocent being, as a victim of events. And even though I was indeed that, I was also so much more.

Hannibal saw the chaotic corruption in me, but he wanted it to consume me entirely. He wanted that to be the full structure of what I really am, even if he needed to destroy every other part of me until only what he wanted remained.  Will saw the innocence in me but he was very focused on himself to see anything else. He shaped me in a way I could guide him out of his complete destruction, but he didn't seek for a way that could actually help us, there was no cure for us after all, so he looked for identification in me to suppress the bad parts of himself. Alana saw the traumatized girl, the victim, the survivor. Forced to live among demons, manipulated to think that that was the only part of life which was reserved to me, and she desperately tried to help with everything she could, but it was not enough. It would never be enough.

Only when Alana had faced several times all the people that she judged wrong that she finally could see what I saw so easily: the monstrosity of the world we lived in. And the intense throbbing in my chest was filled with guilt because I would be the main reason that she would begin to see it so plainly.

"I'm sorry...” Words on loose were said without my awareness.

The overwhelming feeling of guilt interrupted any logical thought I had at that moment. It was deeper than the echo of Hannibal's words, but it didn't seem to control what I had been ordered to commit, even without me wanting to continue.

In my most automatic mode, I walked even closer to her and repeated the pathetic lament.

"I'm so, so sorry..."

The expression of confusion and surprise still molded her attractive face and, at the same moment, she carefully followed my movements. So, without giving her too much time to think, I reached for her body and laced my fingers firmly around the thick fabric of her coat while I rested my head on her shoulder, almost embracing her in a desperate search for comfort. Her gun met the floor when she placed her hands on my shoulders, caressing me gently and possibly striving to calm my trembling state at the same moment that I so desperately tried to keep the warmth of her touch and the smell of her scent.

"You shouldn't be here. I'm really messed up..." I said without even bothering to explain. I knew what would be the resolution of this moment. Her questions wouldn't be answered; her mind would have to fight for the explanations alone.

"Anything you think that you are responsible for, I want you to know that you are not. You're a victim, you're a survivor and we will get away from here, together."

The conviction in her voice marked my heart and made it vulnerable, a part of me wanted to believe her with all my might so I melted even further in her protector embrace.

"He will not get away unpunished after all the damage he caused you, this I can promise you. You must come with me now."

She told me again with the same conviction, even quivering with anger at the mention of Hannibal. Her strong hands were holding me in an intimate manner, and I treasured the way it made me feel grounded for once.

Before her words, however, I lifted my face to meet her eyes again and, at seeing the decisive expression highlighting her features, I smiled in sadness, it showed the despair that echoed with every act of mine.

"You shouldn't promise what you can't accomplish, Alana. You can't save me, but I can save you. I will not let him hurt you like he hurt the others."

The shock that ran through her body was so intense that I could feel it through our embrace. Confusion again emerged on her face and my smile was accompanied by tears slipping down my distorted face; a variety of emotions that I had no control over. The desperate cry that surrounded me brought back the echo of Hannibal's words in my mind.

_"If you don't kill her, we will never be a family, Abigail. We will never be safe. You need to understand that. And especially if you don't kill her, I'll have to do it myself and the way I will do it will be viler and more tortuous than anything you have ever seen before."_

Determination filled my chest and I involved my arms around her waist, getting even closer to her. I fixed my eyes stained with tears in her the sublime, confused face.

When I hugged her with my arms, her hands came up to reach my face, the tips of her fingers ran smoothly from my cheeks until they touched my torn ear. Her eyes were full of an agonizing combination of clemency and anxiety; the affection that I felt from that gesture heated up my cheeks as she tried to remove my tears. Suddenly, I felt in peace.

"Abigail, please, I don't understand what you're saying, but... I'm not going anywhere without you.”

Her voice was lower than anything I could hear, but I sensed it was more and more desperate. Once again, I thought about all my father's victims,  _no_ ,  _my_  victims. I thought that if I have died in their place, perhaps they wouldn't have died the way they did. If I wasn’t so afraid of dying, they could have lived. And the truth that tightened my heart was that maybe it wasn't Alana who was blind, perhaps everyone was blind in some level or another. Perhaps even me.

I didn’t know Alana at all. I didn’t acknowledge her tastes, wishes, desires and fears. I didn't know what she was capable of. And it was true that maybe she knew me more than I knew her, because even though she didn’t know me completely, she recognized a part of me. A good part of me and a part that I wished were stronger than my other parts.

And I idealized her as much as everyone idealized me. In the end, the cruelest thing that my father could have made me do was to make me familiar with a prey. Enough for it to be idealized by me, enough to make me ache for contact that wasn't meant to injure and enough to make feel covered with a destructive guilt after every act of horror committed.

I just wished I have died a long time ago, but maybe that was my chance.

"Perhaps... You don't have to go alone, after all..."

A lot of things could describe an act of mercy; a truthful one.

Free a wounded creature out of its misery often means taking it out of this world, and the least painful way to accomplish that act can make all the difference. Right then, he didn't leave me another alternative, no other possibility, no future, as he promised.

A deeper conclusion could only be found through the decisive end that only death could bring.

Abruptly, I firmly pushed her body to hit the glass window while I kept embraced and entwined around her.

I moved us until we fell out of the building, she had no chance to react and, probably, no thought had a chance to go through her mind. The panic and surprise took the best of her during our fall. Still, I felt it in my heart - the hasty adrenaline and the false sense of peace to maybe find a conclusion in death.

When our bodies collided into the solid concrete floor, the impact was marked by pain, blood and rain, but also by a feeling that I couldn't identify. I felt her fingers trying to touch me at the same time I felt our bodies still close even after the collision; she was lying with her face near the ground. I focused my eyes on her one last time and saw compassion, fear, vulnerability still fixed on her features. Even after I hurt her while she didn't even know my reasons for it. And it hurts me more than I could ever imagine.

And it was then that I realized. This was...  _Mercy_.

The true feeling of solidarity towards the pain of another person.

Empathy in respect of someone who suffers a personal tragedy. This was the difference between me and my fathers. The ability to feel genuine empathy. This was true mercy.

I thought after doing that, taking her away from this ugly world, I could teach her about cruelty in human's hearts that she seemed so unawareof, but then she was the one who teached me.

The value of a human life is characterized by the way we influence someone else's life. I was not a monster, I felt empathy just like her, I was also capable of feeling sad when others were hurt - and I was just terribly lost.

She influenced this realization in me without realizing it.

This was the conclusion; this was what I have been searching for. And even having found it only in that painful moment as I tasted blood and raindrops while I was observing her darker blues eyes losing their light after closing, I knew that I would finally rest in peace with my mind, even if our wounds by the fall didn’t result in our death.

Rest after this ultimate realization, I thought.

 _Rest after a true act of mercy_.


End file.
